Chapter 4

A/N: After receiving various messages along the lines of "I thought Dumbledore said he would keep them safe" and "How come they can do magic now?", my only response is "You'll see soon enough." How annoyingly vague, I know, but still, you will in the end.

A/N2: And I'm ever so sorry for not updating sooner. You know, school, holidays, lack of plot bunnies, all take their toll. Anyway, so long as I get some reviews, I should update again next week. Thanks for staying with me.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

The Headmaster's office was a large, round room, panelled in deep oak wood from floor to ceiling. To one end was Fawkes, the phoenix, a beautiful bird with great healing powers. The rest of the room was lined with shelves and cabinets, holding all manner of books and magical objects. The portraits of previous headmasters, currently sleeping, faced Dumbledore's desk.

Dumbledore turned to look at Fawkes, clearly in deep thought. Still looking at Fawkes, he walked over to a particularly large cabinet to his left and took out a large container, which gave off a silver glow. Drawing his wand to his head, he pulled a long silver strand a tipped this into the translucent liquid in the container.

"Do you think I'm doing the right thing, Phineas?"

The portrait to his right opened his eyes too quickly to have been really sleeping. "It is not for me to say, Headmaster"

"No, I don't suppose it is"

"But, if you want my opinion," he continued, as if not hearing the reply, "you must ask yourself this: how often are you ever wrong?"

Dumbledore sighed. "Yes, but the stakes are so much higher this time."

The portrait looked shrewd. "Then you know what to do."

With that, the portrait went back to pretending to sleep. Dumbledore, pulling another thread from his temple and placing it in the shiny substance, bent down and put his head into the container.

He found himself in a dark street lined with street lamps, half of which were broken. There was a brisk wind and the moon was high and bright. In front of him, stood himself, though younger, and with bright auburn hair. This man walked forward and Dumbledore followed. The other Dumbledore turned round but didn't seem to notice the old Dumbledore's existence. They heard a crash from inside the house opposite where they were standing and not taken aback one bit, they strode purposefully to the front door of the house and knocked three times loudly on the door. The crashing stopped and they heard footsteps coming towards them from inside.

"Who is it?" cried a woman's voice from inside.

"Albus." replied the other Dumbledore. "Albus Dumbledore"

Looking shocked, she peered through the glass window in the door and swiftly unlocked it. She was an old woman, wearing glasses slightly askew, giving her a slightly mad look that was not helped by her many, brightly-coloured shawls draping over the floor.

"What brings you here at such a time?"

"I was looking for you, Verity." he replied, his voice clear but inviting, "May I enter?"

"Well, if you only would have told me, I might have cleared up." she said, sounding nervous, but opening the door all the same. "It's a bit of a mess, you know. Terrible business ... not had time to tidy ... Florean Formitune, who'd have guessed? I mean, he's the last ..."

She stopped mid-sentence, as if only just noticing that he was there. "Can I offer you something to drink, Sir?"

"Tea would be lovely, thank you." he replied, "but I'll make it."

"Why of course, Albus." she said, though looking slightly put out. She showed Dumbledore into what looked to be a lounge, though it looked slightly neglected, with papers all over the floor and the walls lined with photographs, the subjects of which looked angry at the intruder. The old Dumbledore followed and took his seat opposite, totally ignored by the other two.

Waving his wand, two tea cups appeared and he proceeded to fill them with tea. Taking a cup, he sipped and offered the other to the woman, who took it and sipped it herself. She seemed to have regained composure, "So what did you want then, Albus?"

He looked calmly at her. "As I said, I wished to talk with you."

"Yes, I did hear you," she replied, looking slightly affronted, "but what did you wish to talk to me about?"

"I would have thought that would be obvious, Verity."

"I don't know what you're talking about!" she replied, though looking nervous.

He sipped and looked calmly at her again. "I wished to talk about what happened in Minitius Avenue last Sunday."

"I have already given my statement on that, as you well know, Albus"

His voice invited confidence. "Yes, you have, Verity."

She put down her mug, dramatically. "And there's nothing more to add!"

"That," he said, slightly more strongly, but still with that cool invitation to confidence, "as we both know, is not true."

Looking more nervous than ever, she turned to the left, and back to the right before looking back into Dumbledore's clear blue eyes. "Yes ... Well ... It wasn't my fault!"

"What wasn't your fault, Verity?"

"Well ... you see ... I was walking along Minitius Avenue, minding my own business, when I ... when I ..." She paused. When Dumbledore failed to respond, she continued. "When I saw this snake. Big it was, huge in fact. Well, you know I'm scared of snakes, so I hid. I don't think it saw me. No, I can't have seen me."

"What did the snake do?"

"Well ... this is going to sound mad ... it kind of talked. Not in human tongue, but in hisses, in snake language."

"That does not sound mad, Verity"

"Well ... yes ... it seemed kind of angry. Then a man appeared. Tall, he was, wearing a long, black cloak. He looked kind of handsome, actually."

"Did the man say anything?"

"I'm not sure I should be saying this, you know, Albus. How do I know I can trust you?"

"Did the man say anything?" Dumbledore repeated, calmly as ever.

"Well, I don't suppose it could harm", she seemed to conclude, though still looking uncomfortable. "He did in fact. He seemed to be pleading with the snake. 'I couldn't do it, Master. Please don't hurt me. I tried my hardest.' he said ... I didn't have a clue what he was on about. The snake didn't seem to accept this. He hissed considerably louder at the man ... I felt sorry for the man, I did ... then, he kind of switched to English. 'You obviously did not hear me well enough, miserable man. The Baudelaires could destroy everything. I do not accept incompetence, as you know well, Florean.' Before, the man could plead more, the snake hissed again and the man fell to the floor, screaming in pain. It was horrible. After that, I kind of ran ... I only heard about his death yesterday morning."

After that, Dumbledore couldn't seem to get another word from her, she seemed totally immobilised by the thick tears streaming from her face. The old Dumbledore seemed to think he'd seem enough and with flick of his wand, was gone.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Breakfast at Hogwarts was always a raucous affair, especially on the first day of term. The multitude of different foods lining the four, long house tables looked delicious and everyone seemed to have three of everything. As the post owls arrived, a large, Tawny owl landed in front of Harry and it held out its leg, waiting patiently for Harry to untie the scroll around it.

"I wonder who is could be from." said Hermione, eagerly.

"I don't know", said Harry, looking at his name scrawled on the side.

"Probably Hagrid", offered Ron, stuffing more toast into his mouth. "Wishing you a nice term"

"Snuffles!" Harry whispered:

Dear Harry,

Hope you're ok and the Dursleys didn't treat you so badly over the summer. I'm safely out of harms way at the moment, but I can't tell you where, in case this gets intercepted.

Look. I want to talk to you, and soon. There's some important news to give you that can't be written in a letter. Ask your new Baudelaire friends to come, I need all of you. When's your first Hogsmeade trip?

Reply soon,

Snuffles.

Harry scribbled next Wednesday on the back and re-tied it to the owl, who flew back off into the distance.

"I wonder what it could be" said Ron, clearly excited at the prospect of meeting Sirius again.

"It doesn't sound good to me" said Hermione, putting down her bacon. "We don't want him risking his safety. And how did he know about the Baudelaires?"

"Oh, shut it, Hermione. Stop being so sensible!"

She looked affronted. "I'm just trying to keep him safe, that's all, Ron."

"Well, Harry's meeting him anyway, aren't you, Harry."

Without wanting to offend either of them, he couldn't really think of what to say. "He can't be in that much danger. Still nobody knows he's an animagus, do they?"

She turned indignantly to Lavender Brown next to her. "Fine. If you want to risk Snuffles going back to Azkaban, then who am I to stop you?"

"Oh, she's just upset that nobody wrote to her." said Ron to Harry, though Harry looked unconvinced.

The tension wasn't allowed to last long, however, since a tall, stern-looking woman, wearing thin spectacles and hair in bun walked along the table, handing out timetables.

"Here you are, Potter, Granger, Weasley. Your timetables." she said, before walking on to Dean Thomas sitting next to them.

Harry, Ron and Hermione looked over their timetables "At least we don't have Snape and Binns on the same day" Ron concluded finally.

"Yeah, and look – we have that new Professor Gorgachio for Defence Against the Dark Arts this afternoon, after Herbology. Didn't Violet and Klaus say something about him?"

Hermione turned back round once again, "Only that he is Count Olaf, an evil Count who wants desperately to steal their fortune. He's sitting up there."

"They have a fortune?" recoiled Ron is surprise.

"You never listen, do you Ron?"

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

The Baudelaires woke up in a totally different mood that morning. None had been able to sleep that night, all fearing the worst in the morning. Slowly, as they saw the light beginning to stream through the Windows, they decided they best get up, and walked slowly down to the Common Room.

"Where is everyone?" Klaus asked as he got down to the bottom of the staircase.

"They must be at breakfast already. Are we really that late?" his sister replied.

"Must be. Let's go – we need our new timetables."

"Did you sleep? I couldn't at all – why does Olaf have to always ruin everything. I thought it'd be great here."

"I don't know" Klaus replied, sullenly. '"But if we're going down, we'd better go."

And with that, they went through the portrait hole and down to breakfast and the awaiting stares they'd get on their arrival.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

A/N3: Yeah, I know the Baudelaire stuff isn't too good yet, but it will get good. You wait. Please Read and Review to avoid another two month break from updating :P.